


Red Snake

by RadAceFriend



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Self Loathing, thoughts of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 17:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11971800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadAceFriend/pseuds/RadAceFriend
Summary: Shion hates his scar sometimes.Set before Nezumi returns





	Red Snake

Shion hates his scar sometimes.

He hates the way it stops him from hiding who he is, how people see it and their eyes stretch wide and they start to thank him for his work - for his help, for everything he's done for No.6. He can never escape fast enough, and people do it so often.

Shion doesn't think he did anything much, not really. He was a map, and an excuse for the person who actually did so much to have a reason to break in, a reason to get in just so he could tear it all down.

When he looks in the mirror, the first thing he sees is the scar. He tried once, a year or more ago, to cover it up with make-up, to brush powder on his face and neck until the only evidence of it was hidden away beneath his clothes where no-one would ever see it.

He’d decided to only let one person see it, and that person had been gone for three years by then.

But people asked about it, and he didn't want to explain, so he stopped and the scar stayed.

He had thought about dying his hair, or wearing contact lenses, but the scar would still be there, taunting him, making someone else recognise him and come up to him and thank him, not even knowing that someone else had done all the work.

He'd gone past a shop once, only to turn back to look at the knife in the window. It was beautiful; because it had sharp edges that reminded him of a swift and pricking pain at his throat and a single drop of red, because it had a grey handle that would catch the light at an angle and go silver, because its edge glinted like a sharp smile and sarcastic comment as a spoon stirred soup and said there were newt eyes in it.

He'd bought the knife, barely knowing why, and was holding it now, turning it over and over to watch the smiling edge glint and the eyes in the handle flash silver.

Maybe, he thought, maybe if he cut along the scar, all at once, a real red snake would come slithering out from under his skin and leave him and then the cut would heal and there would be no scar. He though about doing it as he turned the knife, wishing that there were new words to remember rather than just the old ones that had kept him company over the years.

He put the knife down as he heard his mother call from the bakery downstairs. There was cherry pie left over from the day's work, and he could have a slice. As he left his room, he saw himself in the mirror, saw his pale hair and red eyes and scar.

Maybe, he thought, if he dyed his hair and wore contact lenses and had no scar people wouldn't stop him, wouldn't thank him for things he hadn't done. He remembered, sometimes, a voice and a smile telling him that having a red snake coiled around his body was charming, but now it was just too recognisable and the one person he wouldn't have minded recognising him hadn't been anywhere near in years.

Shion left his room to go down to the bakery and eat cherry pie with his mother.

Sometimes he really hated his scar.


End file.
